The Island, the Mine, and the Resistance Gardens

The Island, the Mine, and the Resistance Gardens is a solo exhibition by Crystal Bennes. It brings together existing and new work that shape another chapter of the larger, ongoing research project We Eat the Earth. The project explores the relationship between agriculture, extraction, ecology, and power. Focusing og phosphate fertiliser as both material and political agent, the project examines how systems of food production shape landscapes, environments, and social structures across different geographical contexts.

Through a series of interconnected case studies, the project traces global flows and consequences of industrial agriculture, linking historical processes of colonialism and resource extraction to contemporary environmental and political crises. At the same time, it highlights alternative agricultural practices that point toward more sustainable and regenerative futures.

Crystal Bennes is a visual artist and writer based in Scotland. Her practice critically examines the different ways in which power—whether political, financial, technological—is expressed in the world. This work is grounded in extensive research, field work and archival histories, and is expressed in a wide range of media, including Jacquard tapestries, soap sculptures, photographs, publications, performance lectures, prints and meadows.  

Recent exhibitions include: When Computers Were Women, British Textile Biennial (2025); Klara and the Bomb (2025), NOUA, Norway; Betwixt (2024), Freelands Gallery, London; Platform (2023), Edinburgh Art Festival; and Flora Italica (2023), Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen. Between 2022 and 2024, she was artist-in-residence at Talbot Rice Gallery and the Edinburgh College of Art as Freelands Foundation Fellow, and in 2025 she was Dwell Here artist in residence at IMMA.  

Klara and the Bomb (2022), her first photobook—charting connecting threads between the U.S.’s nuclear weapons research, gendered histories of modern computers, and nuclear colonialism—was published by The Eriskay Connection in 2022. Her second photobook, We Eat the Earth, investigates how our collective appetite reshapes the earth and how the production of nutrients required for agriculture impacts our political and physical environments. We Eat the Earth will be published by The Eriskay Connection in August 2026. 

Opening hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 12–5pm
Fotogalleriet is accessible to wheelchair users through our second entrance located in the courtyard.

For press inquiries, please contact Head of Exhibitions, Randi Midthun: randi@fotogalleriet.no

For mediated visits, please contact Research and Education curator, Belén Santillán: belen@fotogalleriet.no